Most Common Types of Website Bugs

The Internet has reshaped our lives and has changed the way people communicate with others. Nowadays, every business has its own website. Furthermore, the Internet is filled with business websites, blogs, forums, entertainment pages and many more. Anything you can imagine can be found online, including things you probably can’t imagine. Nevertheless, due to the high popularity of websites, there’s a constant demand for making more.

However, with every website comes a set of bugs that irritate everyone from developers to end-users. Bugs or annoying little pests as their name suggests are errors or defects in the code itself that cause some kind of malfunction to the website. Now, bugs don’t necessarily hinder the performance of a website at all times. Instead, they can trigger a malfunction under certain circumstances or when customers perform a specific action. Here are a few most common website bugs that plague websites and customer experience.

Functionality bugs

These types of bugs are most commonly found on websites. Around 35 percent of bugs found on websites have something to do with functionality, meaning that the application does something that it isn’t supposed to do. They are the type of bugs that cause some kind of issue when users are browsing through the website. For instance, you expect to log in to your favorite website with your log-in credentials (username and password), but due to a functionality bug, you’re unable to do so.

This type of bug really frustrates people, especially when they’re in a hurry. These types of bugs often occur because of a poor development process or lack of SQA testing (Software Quality Assurance). Either developers were in a hurry to finish coding and they didn’t conduct proper debugging or QA testers were in a hurry to meet the deadline and couldn’t perform all the tests.

Design bugs

These bugs are next in line accounting for 17 percent of all the bugs found on websites. These bugs are found in incomplete software that’s been released or software that has a built-in mistake, but was released anyway. Design bugs usually cause malfunctions in a website’s cosmetics or esthetics. For instance, a page layout becomes unreadable or a company’s logo doesn’t load on a homepage. More severe bugs cause malfunctions in the user interface (UI), turning an easy-to-navigate menu into a nightmare for customers.

To developers, cosmetic bugs are a low priority, but for clients, they are essential. The most common reasons these bugs occur are unclear instructions by the client, misunderstanding the client’s request, wrongly documented requirements or simply an oversight in the source code. Another reason is that website owners often hire inexperienced developers in order to cut costs. Inexperienced developers aren’t good at testing and without proper QA testing, design bugs become common.

Compatibility bugs

Compatibility issues are common in the online world and compatibility bugs make up 11 percent of the bugs found on websites. Websites are accessed through browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, which is an undercover Internet Explorer, and many more. However, during the website development process, developers usually use only one browser, at least 90 percent of the time. Therefore, a website will function properly on Chrome, but it may not work on Safari.

This leads to a browser bug where one browser either cannot display a website or it can’t process information on the page. Compatibility bugs create a conflict between a browser and a website because the website was not designed for cross-browser functionality. Compatibility bugs often occur because developers rush to meet the deadline and simply don’t have the time to design a website for all browsers.

Bugs are an unavoidable part of software development process. There is no software that’s 100 percent bug-free. Websites are no exception. However, websites heavily rely on customer experience and any bug that causes inconveniences for customers must be fixed immediately. Unfortunately, a lot of bugs are discovered by customers poking around the website, which may lead to unpleasant feedback.

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About Me

Canadian business owner who performs web design and development services & hosting services for Canadians. I have also been working on marketing and advertising for a few years and have gained lots of experience doing social media, networking, online marketing and (SEO) search engine optimization.